Italian Phrasebook

Introduction

Milan (23) - Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

© emandem

Italian is spoken in Italy, as well as parts of Switzerland and a tiny little part of Slovenia. It was not too long ago that Italian was declared a single language (ca. 1840), and the differences between local varieties are tremendous, both in pronunciation and grammar alike. Still, the 'standard Italian' should help you get around throughout the country.

Italian is characterised by a strictly romance grammar with very few foreign influences; if you're a speaker of Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian or French, you should have little difficulty understanding it.

Alphabet

The Italian alphabet has 21 letters: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, z. The letters j, k, w, x, y only occur in foreign words.

Pronunciation

Italian makes a distinction between long and short consonants. Stress is normally on the penultimate syllable.

Consonants

Italian consonants that have a pronunciation different from English are mentioned below.

Vowels

• Vowels /a/, /e/, /i/ and /o/ have different qualities than in English. It is hard to give examples, but listening to a few italians speaking should give you a good idea how they are pronounced
• /u/ sounds like /ou/ as in English 'you'
• Italian has no 'schwa' (the sound pronounced as the English article 'a')
• Italian has no diphthongs

Grammar

Noun phrases

Italian has two genders, masculine and feminine. They show up in the inflection of articles, adjectives and participles. Besides several series of exceptions, the general situation is as follows.

Masculine nouns and their articles and adjectives end in -o when singular, and in -i when plural.

• un / il ragazzo cattivo - a/the naughty boy
• i ragazzi cattivi - the naughty boys

Feminine nouns and their articles and adjectives end in -a when singular, and in -e when plural.

• una / la bella macchina - a/the beautiful car
• le belle macchine - the beautiful cars

Most adjectives are placed after the noun; bello, 'beautiful' above is one of the exceptions that precedes it.

Pronouns

Italian has a distinction between subject and object pronouns like English. Subject pronouns are usually dropped, because the person performing the action can be retrieved from the ending on the verb. Italian also has a locative pronoun ci, which you will hear a lot, but is very tricky to use. It is omitted from the list below.

• I/me - io / me
• You - tu / te
• He/him; she/her; it - lui/lo; lei/la; lo (lei/la are also used formally, both for masculine and feminine singular)
• We/us - noi / ci
• You - voi / vi
• They/them - loro / li (M); loro / le (F)

Verbs

Italian has a typical romance verb conjugation system, featuring a large number of distinct forms for different persons, numbers, modes, tenses and aspects. Rough estimates have been made that Italian has over 2.16 million verb forms! The language has four distinct conjugated classes, for verbs in -are, -ire, -ere and -rre. A decent overview can be found here. Since the majority of verbs end in -are, the present-tense paradigm is given below for one example. The majority of verbs you are likely to encounter behaves similarly.

• to sing - cant-are
• I sing - cant-o
• you sing - cant-i
• he/she sings - cant-a
• we sing - cant-iamo
• you sing - cant-ate
• they sing - cant-ano

Clauses

Italian word order is affirmative clauses is the same as in English. Subject pronouns can be dropped, because the person doing the action can be retrieved from the ending of the verb:

• (Giovanni_Sbj) racconta_Verb una favola_Obj - 'Giovanni tells a fairy tale'

The easiest way to form a question is not by changing the word order, but the intonation.

Travel words and phrases

Greeting and pleasantries

Basic phrases and questions

Transportation

Finding your way

Counting

Calendars and clocks

Telling time

• hour – ora
• minute – minuto
• hh:mm AM - [hh:mm] (di mattina)
• hh:mm PM - [hh:mm] del pomeriggio
• at hh:mm sharp - alle [hh:mm] in punto

• 1:00 – l'una / l'una di mattina
• 2:05 – le due e cinque
• 3:15 – le tre e quindici / le tre e quarto
• 4:30 - le quattro e trenta / le quattro e mezzo
• 5:35 - le cinque e trentacinque
• 6:45 - le sette meno quindici/quarto
• 11:55 - mezzogiorno meno cinque
• 12:00 – mezzogiorno
• 13:00 - le tredici / l'una del pomeriggio
• 0:00 – mezzanotte

Question words

• Who? - chi?
• What? – che?
• Where? - dove?
• When? - quando?
• Why? - perché?
• How? - come?
• How much? – quanto?

Prepositions and directions

• At - a
• By (me) - da (me)
• With - con
• From - da
• To - a
• For - per
• Here/There - qui / qua
• Inside/Outside - adentro/ fuori
• In front of/behind - avanti/ indietro
• Next to - accanto
• Opposite - opposto (di)
• Up/Down - su/giù
• Left/Right - sinistro/destro
• In the middle of - in mezzo a / al centro di
• North/South/East/West - norte/sud/est/ovest
• Centre - centro

Words for persons

• Person - persona
• Man - uomo
• Woman - donna
• Child - bambino
• Boy/girl - ragazzo/-a
• Mr/Mrs - signor/-a
• Father - babbo
• Mother - mamma
• Brother - fratello
• Sister - sorella
• Cousin/niece - cugino/-a
• Grandfather/grandmother - nonno/-a
• Uncle/aunt - zio/-a
• Foreigner - straniero

Colours

• White - bianco
• Black - nero
• Red - rosso
• Orange - arancione
• Yellow - giallo
• Green - verde
• Blue - azzurro
• Purple - viola
• Brown - marrone
• Pink - rosa